Thursday, July 19, 2012

Father defends Pope's imprisoned butler

The father of Pope Benedict XVI's imprisoned butler says in a letter his son is honest and he hopes the truth will emerge concerning the leaks of sensitive Vatican documents.

Andrea Gabriele's comments marked the first by relatives of papal butler Paolo Gabriele, who was arrested on May 23 after scores of documents from the papal apartments were found in his Vatican City home.
He is accused of aggravated theft and remains the only suspect in the case of leaked Vatican documents, which exposed corruption, infighting and power struggles in the Catholic church's highest levels of governance.

While Andrea Gabriele defended his son, he hinted the motivation behind the leaks was to expose wrongdoing for the sake of purifying the church.

He said he hoped Benedict's call to carry out "the necessary cleaning of the church" is realised.

"Paolo is paying the price firsthand for a reality that's difficult to understand until the motive of what has happened is made public," he wrote in the letter to Italian television station 
Tgcom 24, which published it on its website on Sunday.

The younger Gabriele, a 46-year-old father of three, has been imprisoned in a holding facility located inside the Vatican gendarmes' barracks since his arrest; he is allowed regular visits by his family and lawyers, and attends Mass weekly.

Many Vatican watchers have seen in the leaks a plot to undermine the authority of Benedict's No.2, the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who has been blamed for a host of gaffes during Benedict's seven-year papacy.

But in one of his last acts before going on holiday on July 3, Benedict sent a letter to Bertone, lamenting the "unjust criticism" that had been levelled against him and reaffirming his confidence in him.

Benedict's gesture was evidence of the seriousness with which the leaks have been treated in the Vatican.

Aside from the criminal investigation that resulted in Paolo Gabriele's arrest, Benedict appointed three cardinals to canvas the Vatican bureaucracy to get to the bottom of the leaks.

Also expected soon is a decision on whether Gabriele will be indicted or whether charges will be dropped. If he is indicted, a trial in the Vatican tribunal is likely to begin in September.